Multiplayer madness

We've already reviewed the single-player campaign of Halo 3, and our thoughts on that experience speak for themselves. But the single-player game is only a very small part of why people buy Halo 3, and the online features of the title are almost insanely ambitious. In this review we're going to look at what Bungie wanted to accomplish with the online portion of Halo 3 and how well they achieved those goals. People are still playing Halo 2 online in large numbers after almost three years, so Halo 3 has some big shoes to fill.

This review isn't an easy thing to write: Halo 3 features many, many multiplayer options spread across 11 maps, a co-op game with its own built-in scoring system, a new level editor called The Forge, and, of course, you have to take into account the numberless game types and downloadable tweaks that the game supports (not to mention the social aspect of playing with the unwashed masses of Xbox Live). For the past week I've been playing at home, at friends' houses, online, offline... I've been living Halo 3 with other players. It's not a bad assignment to be given.

So let's see what is added when you throw more than one player into the mix. I'll drive, you grab the gun, and we'll see who we can shoot.

Load up on guns, bring your friends....

When you play through the campaign of Halo 3 in single-player mode, you start the scene, move forward, kill everything, move forward, see a cut-scene, move forward, repeat. The gameplay can feel a little monotonous, and the AI-controlled soldiers who are supposed to be fighting with you don't do much. God help you if you grab the Warthog’s turret and let the AI drive.

The enemy AI gets better on Heroic and Legendary, but it mainly makes you a more conservative player. I played through the entire game in two sittings, thinking I would never again play the campaign mode. For me, it was competition play and the Forge from now on.

How wrong I was.

Co-op makes the Warthog a very efficient killing machine

During my first co-op game I was riding on the back seat of the Mongoose, Halo 3's ATV-like transport, zipping between the Covenant Wraiths (large tanks) as they battered our forces. We were outgunned, surrounded by enemy turrets and vehicles, and didn't know what to do. So we kept moving, dodging fire where we could. "Get me close to that Wraith; I have an idea," I said, and my partner did so. I leapt off the Mongoose behind the Wraith, jumped on, and slammed a sticky-grenade onto the side of the vehicle. Of course, then everyone knew where I was, and opened fire. My shield was almost gone when I heard...

"I have ya!" my cohort said and pulled a quick U-turn, allowing me to again jump onto the back of the Mongoose and zip away, still alive. It was, if I say so myself, a daring maneuver on the difficulty we were playing at, and I was impressed that we both survived. This never could have happened in single-player; the coordinated attacks you can pull off with another good player are amazing to behold. The co-op in Halo 3 allows up to four players at once, and in the games I've played so far, I haven’t seen a hint of lag. You haven't lived until you've attacked an enemy's fortified position with a Scorpion tank providing covering fire while three of your teammates assault the base on foot. The co-op play makes the campaign feel alive, and you can do things working together that you wouldn't dream of alone. While playing the campaign by yourself can feel clunky and artificial, playing with other skilled players is like living the best buddy-action movie you've ever seen.

Playing through the first two Halos on co-op was fun, but nothing matches playing four-player co-op on Xbox Live, with each player having a full screen, voice chat, and no lag. This is the best possible way to play the game, and it is incredibly addicting.

The other aspect that makes co-op so enjoyable is the co-op scoring feature of the game. If you turn this on, the game begins to track who kills what and awards points for your performance. What you kill, how you kill it, how quickly you finish the mission, and how many times you die can boost or diminish your score, and at the end of each mission you get a nice little tally that lets you know how well you did in comparison with the other players.

This adds a whole new level to co-op play, with players either competing for the high score or choosing to work as a team, and you'll learn more about your style of play from your totals. For instance, I tend to get many more kills than the people I play with, but I also die a whole helluva lot. Learning this, I held back instead of charging in for melee kills, which helped the entire team as I stayed alive much longer. Replayability also goes through the roof with this feature enabled. Can you beat each mission while beating your old scores? Can you beat your times? Can you try to get double the kills of someone else?

You can also help your scoring by scouring the game for a series of skulls hidden in each mission. These skulls give you point multipliers and other effects as you carry them around. While there are guides to finding these, you'll have much more fun finding them for yourself.

Keep in mind that the best way to play co-op is online. The game offers splitscreen, and it's fun, but for some reason the game becomes letterboxed, eating up some of your screen real estate. No fun at all.

Co-op, along with the optional scoring system, adds literally hundreds of hours of play time to the campaign. There is always something new to try, new tactics to perfect with new players, and higher scores to go after. It's a thrill that playing alone just can't match. Time to make some friends.